Microsoft fixes printing gremlin, ends that block on Windows 11 upgrades Microsoft is finally making good on its promise to address a printing problem holding back its latest Windows 11 upgrade. A troubleshooting fix will correct the printing gremlin on affected machines. And if that issue was blocking the installation of the 22H2 update for you, well, there's even better news. "Once the issue …
I've actively avoided Windows on my home machines since 8 came out. The fact they've completely trashed the UI from 7 onwards and then royally fucked up both networking and printing in 10 shows MS lost the plot years ago. And I will never be convinced 11 is even an upgrade.
Bet ya can't wait to slap that Windows 11 on your machine. I'm sticking with Windows 10
I'm sticking with not using Windows at all, or anything else made by Microsoft. Given all the problems I have avoided over the 15 years or so since I decided this, it has emerged as one of the smarted decisions I've ever made.
I switched to Mac 10 years ago. I have a Windows and Ubuntu VM to hand (through Parallels) and never had the problems everyone seem to complain about; even now switched to Apple silicon, the ARM version of Win11 does all I need (mind you, probably I don't need it to do a lot - just a handful of occasionally needed Win-specific apps - the most common is VB in Excel, where saving from the Mac version doesn't always behave when run from Windows).
Despite Apple's need to control hardware AND software (or, more probably, because of it) my Mac rarely needs me to explore too deeply to get done what I need. Also, whilst Apple's hardware is more expensive to buy, I've found the capital uplift more than offset by the time it continues to do its job.
Mind you, I'm not in an environment where an IT department needs to control everything, so YMMV...
Mind you, I'm not in an environment where an IT department needs to control everything, so YMMV...
We're in the process of setting up a new group of companies, and here too, Microsoft won't get through the door. Not happening. Too risky, and if you're honest about TCO by also counting lost staff time it doesn't even make sense economically. Staff time is a LOT more expensive than hardware, and hardware I can write off against taxes.
Yes, it means we're presently looking for good volume management soluitions, but that's a temporary problem. For the rest I'm glad we're starting from scratch so we don't have to battle with any entanglement.
I have Win11 installed on a 3rd drive in my P71 'laptop'. I keep it updated but really don't use it yet, waiting for long-term stability before I try it as my daily driver.
It doesn't seem bad, really, but I'll wait until the guinea pigs iron out the worst of the issues, no use being an early adopter when Win10 works fine as it it. Eventually I am sure that Win11 will become the assumed de facto Windows version so no use putting it off and simply ignoring it.
I'm not sure it's entirely because of Microsoft being a monopoly, but it is allowing them to get away with it easier. Many other software providers acted like asses, and still do, but aren't monopolies.
Microsoft, in particular, are showing just how stupid it is to be run by a nefarious pairing of marketdroids and accountants.
The monopoly ones are the worst though!
It also allows them to introduce ever-more-complicated subscription schemes. Microsoft is of course the market leader in this, by a massive margin. How long before they introduce a Microsoft qualification in understanding Microsoft licensing? It's now so opaque and overlapping, and changes so often, that it's nearly impossible to keep track of it.
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Judging by how computer games and other software suddenly went from having basically no problems when shipped back in the floppy and early CD days to requiring 5 patches roughly totalling a tenth the size of the initial install before they'd run properly when ADSL became prevalent i'd suggest that the issue is probably more along the lines that it's cheaper not to do QA and patch it later rather than a monopoly being the major problem.
Can't disagree with that, however the level of complexity of computer games is considerably higher than it previously was. The gameplay and systems are often still stupidly simple but the overlaid complexity of graphics has added a huge amount of complexity that wasn't there previously. I suspect that previously games were largely designed by one competent designer and extended from there whereas now it's a team of quite obviously disinterested individuals with no overarching eye for design, consistency or quality.
Many games seem to be developed from the visuals first and then an attempt to cobble a game backwards from that. Not that games in the past have been great of course, just to show my age I remember the routine stinkers from Ocean (I think) who just churned out lame platform games one after the other vaguely tied into a film release. Change the box art, tweak the sprites and tadaa! another Ocean platform game was released.
As Missing Semicolon posted above, it's got breaking bugs in it.
One of those is that total and per-process CPU usage are incorrectly reported, even within the new Windows Task Manager itself (all the CPU usage values reported in the Details tab of Task Manager are incorrect). Total CPU usage not based on the Processor Utility counters is broken too, and this bug also affects 3rd party applications.
It seems these days you can count on Microsoft to not even bother to test their own stuff. Wonder how long it will take for this to be fixed (or even if it will be fixed, given how Windows Insiders had already been reporting this issue long before 2H22 official release).
As a developer I just feel completely dismayed at how bad things have gotten inside Microsoft for them to reach this point of "don't care" on what is essentially a monopolistic OS to the general population.
"It seems these days you can count on Microsoft to not even bother to test their own stuff. Wonder how long it will take for this to be fixed (or even if it will be fixed, given how Windows Insiders had already been reporting this issue long before 2H22 official release)"
The current unfortunate situation goes all the way back to 2014 when Microsoft fired pretty much all their quality control and testing staff hence all the beta quality "updates" today that need subsequent correction.
"Even with this troubleshooting update now available (it should automatically download and install) it will take up to 48 hours before the 22H2 upgrade to Windows 11 is offered, even assuming there are no other blockers. Redmond's engineers said restarting the system and checking for updates may speed up the process.
So, to recap: their automated updates don't always work and, by the way, after even 30-something years of Windows, switching it off and on again is still the recommended way to fix a problem.
The mind boggles. How in the name of <deity> can this still be an acceptable situation?
Probably because the only developers left at Microsoft are the type that are only capable of badly reinventing the wheel using ridiculously inefficient toolkits and care nothing for efficiency, error handling, usability and in particular testing. Usually they don't care about keeping the previous functionality either... as long as it's shiny it doesn't matter.
I came here to say this. Why on earth so they not know, what's with the 'may'. If they don't know what will definitely work with the software they're responsible for creating then what bloody hope do any of us have? We seem to always have to deal with Microsoft Voodoo every single day, will this work, will that do what it's meant to, will that password sync to Azure update immediately or will even after manually running the connector will I still have to give up and wait for a few hours.
It's getting more and more frustrating to support Microsoft stuff and I'm tired of it. You don't need to spend time trying to make stuff that should just work, especially on their own bloody system, when you've got other more pressing issues. I find myself having to explain Microsoft foibles every damn day knowing to the user it actually just makes my department look completely incompetent.
I suspect, or more accurately hope, that "may" is used because of the way Microsoft Updates are distributed over time. Microsoft do not have the online resources for every single Windows client to connect in and download the latest updates all at the same time. As a result these updates are staggered timewise and while restarting and doing a manual check for updates will usually show the update earlier than just leaving it, there are still priorities by way of connecting and downloading updates and therefore sometimes even with a manual update check the update will not be made available.
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